After Earth - Everybody Hates M.

“After Earth” got horrible critic reviews.  And, according to Flixter as of 12:40pm on June 1, 61% of movie watchers liked it.  I do agree that it isn’t the best movie that I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t as horribly unwatchable as some of the reviews I saw made it out to be.

So I have to wonder, is part of the reason that critics panned the movie that M. Night Shyamalan directed it?

I really enjoyed Shyamalan’s first three movies, “The Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable”, and “Signs”.  I thought “The Village” was creepy and scary, but I didn’t hate it.  I really liked the twist at the end.  “Lady in the Water” was bizarre, but I didn’t hate it either.  I haven’t seen “The Happening”, so I can’t comment on that one.  “The Last Air Bender” was highly criticized for its casting.  The acting wasn’t the best, and the special effects and costuming were kind of cheap.  But it was fairly faithful to the animated series that the story was taken from.  Again, I didn’t hate it.  As entertainment, M. Night Shyamalan’s movies do just fine for me.

Admittedly, my standards are probably not as high as others.  Especially movie critics’ standards.  I learned a long time ago that I don’t always agree with them.  But a lot of people do pay attention to what they say when deciding if they’ll go see a movie or not. 

I’m not going to say that “After Earth” was amazing.  In my opinion, it had too much Jaden Smith and not enough Will.  But I think that was the plan—Will and Jaden in a movie together where Jaden would be the main character.  So that wasn’t Shyamalan’s fault.

The story had a ton of holes in it.  As co-writer of the movie, that could definitely be blamed on Shyamalan.   But you could also blame the other writer, Gary Whitta.

Jaden Smith looks worried/terrified through most of the movie.  But he had the same expression for a good portion of “The Karate Kid” (or as I like to call it, “The Kung Fu Kid”), so that might just be his natural mode.  As the director of the movie, Shyamalan was responsible for the acting—but the ability of the actor comes into play as well.

Yes, there were plenty of things wrong with the movie.  But there were things I did enjoy.  I liked the cinematography (even the computer generated bits).  I liked the design of the sets.  It was a very pretty movie to watch.  I liked the symbolic journey of Jaden’s character, going from a frightened, guilt-ridden kid to a confident young man at peace.  I also liked the change in Will Smith’s character from an absentee father to one with pride in his son.  And I was able to get around the holes in the story (with a little bit of eye rolling) to enjoy the whole of it.

Don’t pre-judge this movie just because M. Night Shyamalan was involved in it.  If you like sci-fi flicks, this isn’t the worst one you could see.  Out of the movies I’ve seen this year, this one isn’t at the bottom of my list (that spot goes to “G. I. Joe Retaliation”).  It isn’t the best (so far, that spot goes to “Star Trek Into Darkness”).  But it was just fine for a Friday after work.  And I’ll probably buy it when it’s available on Blu-ray.